The Kidney and the Stray

My kidneys were failing. 

I shouldn’t be sitting in a dialysis chair at 21 relying on a machine to remove the toxins that everyone else just pisses out. I should be putting toxins in my body: vapes, hard Kombuchas, vodka cranberries, marijuana, and cigarettes. But even with the impulsivity I still possessed, I wasn’t about to take that risk. 

The nurse at my nephrologist’s office told me that dialysis centers are the equivalent of nightclubs and house parties for people with end stage renal disease. I think she was trying to hint that I might get lucky during a weekly session. I guess when you’re sitting attached to a machine that is removing your insides and combing through them, you have a lot of free time on your hands. 

No, this isn’t going to be The Fault in Our Stars, end stage renal disease edition. I did not meet the love of my life, and, in fact, I was trying to avoid sitting next to the only guy even relatively close to my age because he watched his TV shows out loud, an absolutely despicable habit. 

How did I get here? Shit luck. Literally. I got a bad case of bloody diarrhea at 17 from some takeout and ended up with blood in my piss and a gnarly rash on my legs that made me look like my parents were anti-vaxxers who let me get the measles. My pediatrician at the time ran some tests and told my parents they needed to take me to the hospital. 

I remember feeling terrified as they told me I would need to have some urgent procedure where they removed my blood and put it back into my body. My dad was with my sick grandma at the time a few hours away, and my mom, who was a nurse, was so beside herself that I had to calm her down. They kept me for two weeks in the hospital, where I learned about Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, a disease affecting blood clotting and the blood vessels that I had developed from the stupid idiotic E Coli that had contaminated the food I ate. 

For a while, my kidneys were just not working great. They said I had chronic kidney disease but not yet failure. I saw my nephrologist, I mainly remembered to take my blood pressure medicines and other supplements they seemed to care so much about, and I tried to forget that I was sick. It was easy to forget because I had no symptoms. 

The long drives to the only medical center that could care for my rare condition made my parents crazy, I guess, because they divorced three days after my 18th birthday. I still remember shifting the filet mignon around on my plate glumly as my parents sat as far from one another as they could during my birthday dinner. Their bodies were so tense that I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t even enjoy the rare chance I had to eat a heaping pile of protein and mashed potatoes, items that did not match my kidney-friendly diet and thus were reserved for special occasions. 

At 20, my nephrologist told me the words I hoped, delusionally, that I would never hear.

“Aizere, it’s time to start dialysis.”

I broke down into tears in the office.

“I can imagine this must be very difficult for you.” Dr. Sanchez was nice, but I hated her for delivering me this news. I wanted someone to blame. I wanted to grab the stupid plastic model of the kidney on her desk and rip it into pieces.

I had also started the evaluation process for a potential transplant at this time, but my mom and dad were found not to be matches. Our family was quite small; my dad was an only child, and my mom had one much younger sister who had declined to consider donating. 

So, here I was, about to start dialysis at age 20 and with absolutely no prospects for a new kidney. I didn't have any prospects for a boyfriend, either, in case you were wondering. Oh, and I had to quit attending community college because dialysis would take up too much time and I didn’t qualify for the kind of dialysis you could do while you sleep. So that's a negative on career prospects. Life was shit. 

“Good morning, Aizere,” the nephrology nurse greeted me and began to take my vitals. 

I mumbled back and looked around at today’s milieu. Most everyone was about 40 years older than me. They had Fox News playing on full blast for all of these boomers. One lady who appeared to be about 70 gave me a smile of pity. I looked away. Based on facial expressions and body language, I could see a pretty spicy conversation was taking root between two patients. Maybe I'd shift toward eavesdropping on it if I got bored during hour two.

I always tried to choose a chair facing a window during sessions. But today, it was drizzling, and the sky was layered with thick, light grey clouds. The bright fluorescent lighting was nauseating - or maybe it was just the liters of fluid being pulled from my body.

I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep to make the time pass faster, but I was awakened by a loud, irritating, high-pitched barking. Barking? Who brought their dog to dialysis?

“This stray has been here since yesterday,” a tech was announcing to the group. “We are working on calling animal control to take her away.”

Outside my window, there was a small dog with a mangy-looking grey-brown coat and giant, pointy, triangular ears barking and howling. Her fur was bunched up in clumps, and I could make out every single one of her ribs. She was so full of mud and dirt that I couldn't even tell what color her coat was. Her face was covered in dirt and blood, her neck was thin, and her dark eyes were wide and terrified. When she took breaks from barking, I could see her trembling. It was cold outside, and she barely had any fat to insulate her tiny body. After putting up a good fight, she finally laid down in the dry, brown grass, her little nose resting in the mud.

“Please, that dog is interrupting my book,” said a middle aged man a few seats down. “And I already have a headache.”

It was sad, but I had sadder things to think about than a stray dog at Davita Dialysis. These days, my mom, who I lived with now, was travel nursing a few states over to try to make some extra cash to cover medical bills. My dad was galavanting in Europe with some woman who was 20 years younger than him post-engagement who he had met on a 5K run for kidney disease back when he cared about me. I had no use for him. He could kick rocks. 

My dialysis days were exhausting, so those three days I did barely anything at all. I drove myself to the center and back and collapsed on the couch for a long nap afterwards. I worked online in tech support the rest of the days. 

I guess the tech never did call animal control because the dog was still there on Thursday and Saturday, too, being an absolute menace. She came up to the windows and scratched them with fury until the front desk clerk chased her off, yelling. I had to commend her persistence.

“I’m thinkin’ about bringin’ my pistol and just takin’ her out,” said one of the men. He was legally blind and missing both legs, so I questioned the accuracy of his aim. 

After my session that day, I walked out to my car and saw the dog laying down my sweatshirt, which had apparently fallen out of the driver’s seat when I got out that day. Her starved body was curled into a ball, her nose tucked in near her feet, and she was shaking like crazy. She was licking her feet over and over again, like some kind of self-soothing behavior. 

I loved that sweatshirt, and I wanted it back. I tugged on the sleeve, hoping she would run away, but she was stubborn. 

“Hey, you have to move,” I said.

I didn’t want to touch her. What if she had rabies? I had already lost my kidneys; I didn’t want to lose my mind next. With that fear in mind, I gave up on the sweatshirt, reached across to open the door and hopped into the driver’s seat. Before I could close the door, I felt something heavy land in my lap. I screamed. The dog looked up at me with its protruding dark eyes and her breath and entire body smelled like hell. Her giant, pointed ears were folded back onto her head.  

“No! Down! Get out of the car!” I shouted, helpless. 

Instead, she curled up in my lap in the same way she had done with the sweatshirt. She let out this big sigh like she was finally home. It kind of broke my heart. 

The nearest animal shelter was about an hour away, so I figured I’d take her to the vet and drop her off there. Surely they handled strays all the time. Maybe they’d feed her too. 

I parked at Critter Care Animal Clinic and grimaced as I picked her up. I could feel the grime on my fingers, and the horrible smell was even closer to my nose now. 

“Good morning! Are you here to establish care or is your fur-baby a current patient?” The clerk was smiling from ear to ear. 

“Well - I mean I guess to establish care, but really I just–” I stumbled over my words. 

“Great! Let’s put her in the system,” the clerk said happily. “What is her name?”

“Davita.” It came out before I could even think. I still needed to tell them that I just wanted to drop her off. 

“Davita, what a pretty name. Now, she looks a little thin. I’m assuming you found her as a stray?”

“Yes, she is a stray. She’s been at the doctors’ office I go to. I’m really just here to help her get what she needs. She’s not mine–”

“We will take her back now! You can wait in the waiting room,” said the clerk. “It’ll be about 20 minutes, so don’t leave yet.”

Before I could protest, a tech took her from my hands and into the back room. I could just leave. I knew that. What would they do? But they had my information on file now. Would they come after me? Maybe after she got her exam and shots, I could just tell them that I never planned on taking her…

“Aizere Anisa!” 

The tech held the dog in his hands. I didn’t recognize her at first. Her once-muddy-brown coat was a speckled orange and brown, and her ears were golden-brown in the back and snow-white in the front. Just one of her perky ears was nearly the size of her face. Her black nails were freshly trimmed, and she was wagging her tail so intensely that her whole body wiggled and she was sniffing the air. She was really cute. 

“It seems like she’s been out on her own for quite a while now,” a woman in a white coat with a stethoscope who I assumed to be the vet started talking. “We think she’s about 3 years old. She’s been fixed already, but we gave her all of her shots since we have nothing on record. She’s very, very malnourished, so we recommend starting with puppy chow and giving small, frequent portions at first.”

They handed her to me, and I accepted. I don’t know why, but I didn’t protest. Maybe we needed each other. 

Over the next few months, I nursed her back to health. Her coat began to glow, and she started playing with the toys I bought her. She slept at my feet at night and got me out of the house for walks, something I hadn’t done since starting dialysis. Since my neighborhood had nowhere to walk, I had to drive to a local park. The name “Davita” stuck, and before I could change it, she learned it. 

As a joke, my mom bought me a sweater for her to wear that said “my mom is looking for a kidney.”

“You never know what heroes are out there,” my mom said. 

I rolled my eyes. She was leaving again for travel nursing that night. I was going to be alone again for a month, but at least now I had Davita to keep me company. Davita seemed to love the sweater and whined when I took it off. She was an odd dog. 

Normally, Davita was very well-behaved in public, but today, for some reason, she started barking incessantly at a couple sitting on the bench across from us. 

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, turning red. “She usually doesn’t do this.”

“Are you actually looking for a kidney, or is this a joke?” The woman ignored Davita and looked interested. 

“I’m on the list, but I don’t have any living donor prospects,” I said glumly.

“Our son died of kidney failure from a rare genetic condition,” said the man. “We wanted to donate to him, but neither of us were a match. He died of cardiac arrest before we could find another. It was all so sudden.”

We spoke for an hour. We talked about dialysis, dogs, life, and death. 

They looked at each other and seemed to be having a conversation with their eyes.

“We would like to undergo the evaluation process to see if we can donate to you,” said the woman after a long period of silence. “We didn’t get to save Charlie’s life…but we like to think that he’s in heaven looking down on us and that he would want this too.”

“Oh-” I was flustered, unsure of what to say. I had never had anyone offer to take me to prom, much less donate me one of their organs. “I couldn’t accept.”

“At least let’s exchange numbers,” the man insisted. “We can give you some time to think.”

“When we underwent the process for Charlie, we learned a lot about the research on healthy living kidney donors and how their bodies adjust remarkably well,” added the woman. 

I waved goodbye to them that day, taken aback and suspicious. Why would two random people consider giving another stranger a kidney? 

***

“Aizere, you need to accept the kidney.”

“Mom-” I protested. “This is weird!”

It had been a few days since I met the couple at the park, and I had put off telling my mom about it.

“Let’s face it,” she said, becoming serious. “Your life expectancy shortens a little bit more each day that you are on dialysis. This is why I bought you the shirt for Devita in the first place. I felt like something like this would happen. Humans are awful, but humans are also amazing and selfless. You can do something great for someone else in the future. For now, I say you take them up on their offer.”

My hands were shaking as I texted the couple back. 

How exactly does one text someone requesting an organ?

They didn’t respond for several hours. I sighed, knowing that it was too good to be true all along. When I was watching a rerun of The Kardashians, I got a phone call. It was them.

“Aizere, we got your message. We’re glad that you have decided to accept our offer to undergo the evaluation. We will both undergo the evaluation, and then hopefully one of us will be a match. If not, we’d like to donate to someone else anyway and start some sort of a kidney donation chain. We’ve read beautiful stories about these online. I know it sounds insane, but our lives have become so much different after losing our son. We don’t have money to start a foundation in his name, and we aren’t marathon runners who can travel around the globe raising awareness for childhood kidney disease. But we’ve lived healthy lifestyles, and we would like to give someone else the life that our son never got to have.”

I started tearing up, realizing that this was actually potentially going to happen for me. I looked down at Davita, whose big dark eyes were already staring up at me, her tail wagging. There were still so many unknowns. But it was possible that she had saved my life as much as I had saved hers.